WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 102111

Reductions in property tax revenue have forced the San Diego County-based San Miguel Fire District to reduce its wildfire response forces, just as Southern California's wildfire season hits its peak fall period (1); while two controlled burns in Lassen Volcanic National Park next week are intended to burn off 1,000 acres of overgrown vegetation (2). Fed up with perceived federal inaction protecting their forests, Apache County, Arizona, supervisors said they would fix the wildfire problem and bill federal authorities for the cost, if necessary (3); and firefighters extinguished a three-acre wildfire burning in Colorado's Jefferson County yesterday (4). The CEO of American Forests sounds off in the next article about measures that need to be taken at the federal level to avert more disasters like the wildfires in Texas this year, which scorched 3.8 million acres, destroying 7,600 homes (5); while yet another wildfire has been attributed to faulty power lines, this time near Kountze (6); NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instruments aboard their Terra and Aqua satellites showing how seasonal changes impact wildfires in that state (7); even as a check for $725,000 was presented to the Austin Community Foundation by organizers of a wildfire relief concert that entertained a sold-out crowd earlier in the week (8); but one Cass County couple refuses to be beaten down by wildfires that destroyed their dream home (9). As the first snowflakes began falling across Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, officials indicated that the area would be open for campers next year despite the damage done by a massive wildfire this year (10); while the Florida Division of Forestry offered some tips to homeowners in North Central Florida to help reduce the number of human-caused wildfires in that drought-stricken region (11). The next article examines British Columbia, Canada's, expensive war against pine mountain beetles, which have infested 17,000,000 ha of forest that cost $750 million to treat (12). The Swinley Forest wildfire, which burned in Berkshire, UK, this past May, has become a training module for fire departments across Europe (13); but budget cuts have negatively influenced wildland firefighting efforts in Spain's Costa Blanca region (14); while a wildfire that burned 200 dunams (about 50 acres) in northern Israel forced evacuations from nearby Kibbutz Yasur (15). The importance of Geographic Information System technology to Australia's new Bushfire Spread Prediction Tool is discussed in the next article (16); but a bushfire relief scammer has been jailed for four years after receiving $116,800 due to false claims of losses in Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires (17). Air-tankers have been called in to help battle a bushfire burning near Aramac, Queensland (18); where communications problems hampered firefighters battling bushfires in the central west (19). Although rainfall brought much-needed relief from numerous bushfires burning across Central Australia, fires near Alice Springs, Northern Territory, burned unabated (20). And finally, we've all heard of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but a Wasau, Wisconsin, firefighter performed a slight variation on that theme to revive a golden lab!

(1) San Miguel Fire District Moves To Eliminate Fire Engines from Dehesa Station

(2) Prescribed burns scheduled at Lassen Volcanic National Park

(3) County: 'Fix the forest or we will'

(4) Firefighters snuff small wildfire in Jefferson County

(5) The U.S. needs a proactive approach to wildfire

(6) Update: Kountze wildfire caused by faulty power line

(7) NASA unveils data images of Texas wildfires

(8) UPDATED: Sellout Concert Raises $725,000 for Texas Wildfire Victims

(9) Wildfire took home, but not spirit, of East Texas couple

(10) BWCA fire zone will be open for campers next year, Forest Service officials say

(11) Preventing Human-Caused Wildfires

(12) Painful lessons from blighted forests

(13) Swinley Forest fire to help train crews

(14) Concern over forest fire service cuts

(15) Firefighters control wildfire in W. Galilee; 4 injured

(16) GIS Underpins Australian Bushfire Prediction Tool

(17) Man jailed over bushfire relief rort

(18) Bushfires burn near Qld township

(19) Communications to be reviewed in the wake of Queensland fires

(20) Storms bring relief for Red Centre firefighters

(21) Firefighter revives dog, mouth to snout